Harbhajan Singh, the India offspinner who was recalled to the Test squad on Monday, has hit out at his critics, and also declared that he has "evolved" as a cricketer during his year out of the team.

"A good bowler should not be only judged by his wickets count, his skillful bowling methods should also be taken into account," Harbhajan told PTI in Mohali. "His (a spinner's) role changes according to the wicket. Some people who have not played cricket themselves have been writing crap stuff about me." - Idhu pudhusu

Harbhajan was a permanent member of India's Test squad for several years before he was left out for the tour of Australia late last year, leaving him with 98 Test caps. "It would be nice to complete 100 Test matches, I just can't wait to get into whites for India against England."

While Harbhajan hasn't taken loads of wickets on the first-class circuit after being dropped, he said he had improved as a cricketer. "During the time I was out of the Indian team I got time to work on different aspects of the game. I captained Punjab team and also the Mumbai Indians. I think I have become a good listener and can handle things on the field in a better way."

India's captain MS Dhoni has repeatedly called for turning tracks for home series, and Harbhajan also hoped the pitches would assist spinners. "The wickets should have everything for everyone. When Dhoni says that he has not seen any spinner getting the ball bounce in the rib cage area of the batsman in the recent past, I agree with him.

"I would love to bowl on a wicket which has both turn and bounce, so that I can also bowl in the rib area of the batsman from outside the off stump."

I wouldn't blame Harbhi for this, may be he was completely dumbstruck by his recall and he just blurted this outthe rot is @ the top, would Patil dare to drop him knowing fully well his predecessor was booted out for questioning the continued selection of Dhoni's buddies. if an home series loss can rid of this rot yam all for it

AF - andha photos pAthtavunE enakku modhalla same reaction. Hairstyle is better. Previous hairstyle reminded me of Babloo@PrithviRaj. No wonder he went through a horror time. Hope Samson gets his mojo back with his air

Baba counting starts 99 more to go, he needs to check into sathunavu thittam to bulk up. outclassed Badri which doesn't mean much but he ought to go easy on those glides to third man(Badri's school of batting)

Pwnter how crap were Indian bowlers to dole out 100s to all these Oz batters

"I am unhappy with the way they have approached the game," Raina said. "Perhaps they were scared of us. Jadhav played well and the captain [Rohit Motwani] as well but they needed to give us time to chase well. If they really want to achieve their goal of doing well in the Ranji Trophy, there's no point in batting for almost two-and-a-half days and asking us to chase 765. But still we managed to reach almost 300 today. You might see something different from the UP team tomorrow."

Howsoever optimistic Raina tried to be, he eventually admitted it was virtually impossible to score nearly 480 runs in a day. "We will see how it goes in the first session. I am slated to bat next and then we have Piyush [Chawla], Parvinder [Singh], Arish Alam as well, so we have a long batting line-up. Still you can't look to chase more than 460 on the last day. Somewhere around 340-350 is gettable but 460 is virtually out of question.

"I am not happy with these tactics. We won against Delhi and when we came here - this is their first game - I thought they would try and improve on where they had left last season. But they were safe, they were too defensive. Hopefully they will improve over the next couple of games."

It wasn't just the tactics. Raina was equally critical of the pitch which was nothing but a batsman's paradise. "No bounce, no pace, no spin. There is literally nothing in it for the bowlers. They work so hard on their game, there has to be something in it for them. There are some who need to pick a lot of wickets in order to come back into the Indian team but they can't do anything about it when you have such wickets."